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COLUMBUS, Ohio—The frenzied political state of Ohio on the eve of the midterm election is what occurs when nobody is aware of which polls to belief. Within the state’s two marquee races—governor and Senate—the Republican is polling forward, in a single case by double-digits.

And but neither race feels like a foregone conclusion, even in an election cycle the place historical past is on Republicans’ aspect. You hear it from voters in every camp, and from campaigns on each side. Something can occur, and simply may.

“Ohio is hard as a result of it’s been so gerrymandered. The numbers are there, although. Individuals simply have to vote,” Naomi DeVore advised me final week in a car parking zone on Columbus’ northside, on her manner from casting her poll. Regardless of what the polls counsel, the 32-year-old challenge supervisor believes that former Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley nonetheless has a shot at unseating Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and that Democrat Tim Ryan can squeak out a win for the open Senate seat in opposition to J.D. Vance. “All of my mates are voting for Nan and Tim. Ohio could be very purple.”

Possibly. And it’s a giant possibly that the state stays as evenly cut up between the purple and the blue because it as soon as was. Early-vote numbers have been lagging within the metropolis’s city areas, locations the place Democrats sometimes run up the rating to offset a shellacking within the rural counties. Certain, about 126,000 extra Democrats have solid their ballots than within the final midterms, rising their share of that bucket of about 1.2 million votes (and counting) by about 2 share factors. However independents—these voters who truly determine elections in Ohio—have seen their share soar by 3 share factors.

It’s fully doable a lot of these independents cut up their ballots, casting votes for DeWine, however deciding that Vance isn’t nearly as good a match for the state as Ryan. (Ohio, to be clear, is just not distinctive right here in ticket-splitting, as voters in no less than eight different states might find yourself doing one thing related.) Polls present DeWine comfortably forward by round 20 share factors and the Senate race presumably breaking late for Vance—that means there’s a persistent under-vote for him.

However after the previous few cycles, and widespread skepticism that pollsters know what they’re even doing anymore, these polling averages really feel like they could be off, maybe considerably. And that’s why, within the closing days of a marketing campaign that ends on Tuesday, Whaley and Ryan have been hustling, and arduous. For each candidates’ advisers, a win stays within the combine. And all 4 top-of-the-ticket campaigns are placing very, little or no inventory in public and even personal polling. So shut is the race, a few of their high aides are choosing up clipboards with little fanfare at discipline workplaces and heading to the doorways to spot-check their very own assumptions by way of old school canvassing.

“I believe Tim has struck an actual nerve with lots of people,” former state lawmaker Bob Hagan, a Democrat, advised me. “However Nan goes to be nearer than the polls say.”

However it’s bitter for Hagan, who’s attempting to make a comeback of his personal: “It’s M&Ms, and so they aren’t candy for Democrats. This state is about Cash and Maps.”

Ohio’s politics are as difficult and contradictory as they arrive. The state has lengthy embraced its unofficial motto of “As Goes Ohio, So Goes the Nation.” Joe Biden was the primary Democrat since 1960 to seize the presidency with out the state’s electoral votes. Donald Trump’s win right here in 2020, after first successful right here in 2016, put Ohio’s standing because the primo bellwether in jeopardy—and possibly even its place as a state each events trouble investing in. One of many largest Democratic tremendous PACs, Priorities USA, left Ohio off their listing of focused states this cycle and as an alternative directed money to future battlegrounds like Georgia and Arizona, and perennial must-win states of Pennsylvania and Michigan. And regardless of Biden incomes 42% of Ohio’s vote two years in the past, Democrats are successfully shut out of energy; the redistricting maps had been drawn with purple Sharpies, and the 15-seat delegation to Congress subsequent yr is anticipated to have no less than 11 Republicans.

The mixture of rigged districts and shifting statewide demographics in Ohio, frankly, makes it a tricky promote for Democrats, whose latest victories have been powered by folks of coloration, ladies, and youthful voters; white Ohio voters in 2020 made up two-thirds of the citizens, ladies had been a slim minority that very same yr, and younger voters are, crassly, an unreliable funding in renewable sources.

Nonetheless, Ohio’s faculty campuses can’t be ignored in a dialogue in regards to the state’s political leaning.

“We wouldn’t be a swing state if we didn’t have these universities. They’re youthful and extra liberal, and so they can vote,” 66-year-old emergency-room nurse Elaine Clark Tempo tells me in Columbus after a Fox Information discussion board. Clark Tempo could be very concerned in native GOP teams and has been impressed with Vance’s evolution as a candidate. Nonetheless, she will be able to’t assist however look over her shoulder with fear towards Ohio State’s campus simply two miles north of the place we’re speaking. “If we didn’t have the faculty voters, we’d be a purple state.”

Which can clarify why, after spending final week on the bottom, it was unimaginable to not really feel like I used to be watching two utterly totally different campaigns. At Democrats’ occasions, codifying abortion rights, defending democracy from autocracy, and combating extremism topped the agenda. On the opposite aspect, there was a number of chatter about Biden’s financial failures, mockery of social justice points, and protection of police budgets from anti-cop anarchists. It felt like one get together was in a school dorm’s lounge whereas the opposite was a rustic membership’s locker room—the place, after all, transgender neighbors are banned.

The candidates themselves really feel the two-screen actuality whereas acknowledging Ohio’s place as a proxy for the entire nation is tenuous at finest.

“Some folks say, Oh, no, it’s a purple state. That’s simply not true. We could also be slightly right-of-center. However we’re a state that actually nonetheless can elect Democrats,” DeWine advised me in Zanesville.

Taylor Sappington, the Democratic nominee for auditor, has an attention-grabbing corollary: “Ohio is just not a purple state,” he says in Youngstown earlier than the twist. “It’s a rigged state.”

That’s why Sarah Pomeroy was standing every week earlier than Election Day in a car parking zone on Morse Highway, north of downtown Columbus, doing every thing she might to get her colleague within the metropolis legal professional’s workplace elected a Franklin County choose. “The native races are the place you construct the bench,” says the 32-year-old assistant metropolis legal professional and volunteer marketing campaign supervisor for Zach Gwin.

The state, for certain, can be studied and dissected after Election Day on Tuesday. Whaley ran a progressive race centered on a message geared toward animating the get together’s youthful, feminine, and extra inclusive base. Ryan ran his marketing campaign fully exterior the Democratic machine whereas wanting arduous for these working-class voters who’re bored with being advised Washington was combating for them with out something to indicate. So within the coming days, we’ll study whether or not the pollsters there had any clue what they had been doing in Ohio. In the event that they did, we might come to appreciate that Ohio has retained its bellwether mettle. Democrats simply might not like what meaning for them in Ohio and, extra broadly, the higher Midwest and possibly even the nation.

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Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.